


Last Resort

by SegaBarrett



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Post-Norma's Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb moves in with Norman after Norma's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Resort

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Bates Motel, and I make no money from this.

Some days it’s okay. Sometimes they can pretend it’s normal, this thing they’re doing.

At least, Caleb can. 

Some days he rises, gets dressed, takes a shower and doesn’t look behind him for shadows against the tile floor. Doesn’t check to make sure he locked the door.

It’s not like it matters anyway.

Some days they’ll actually sit together on the couch, watching some old movie or another, legs draped over the cushions and maybe speaking a few words. Neither one of them’s really much of a talker.

At least, not anymore.

***

Some days it’s not okay, not at all. 

Some days they end up in a macabre embrace, with Norman waving around whatever knives he found in the kitchen drawers, yelling about his mother’s honor and telling him to get the hell out. 

Asking him why the hell he’s even here.

He usually disarms him by the time he’d have to remind him he drove up on the day of Norma’s funeral and brought him back to the house. 

Someone had to. It couldn’t have been Dylan and Emma, not with their new baby on the way.

And who better than the man who had nothing left to lose?

***

Some days it’s almost like it was. The wig is uncanny, actually. 

That freaks Caleb out more than he’d really like to admit. That he can squint and almost think it’s Norma in the room with him, it’s Norma ironing or cooking dinner or reading in the corner.

It freaks him out more how much he looks forward to those moments.

***

Things have been almost very normal for a while when he starts spitting up blood, but what’s the point in going to a doctor to tell you what you already know? And what’s the point in giving Norman some kind of timeline for when he can expect to be alone again?

As if Norman is ever really alone.

He cleans up the sink, tosses the bloody tissue in the trashcan and stuffs a bunch of stuff on top of it. He walks out and calls a greeting to Norman like it’s any other day.

“Caleb, what are you even doing?”

It’s not Norman but Norma who greets him in return, hand caught in the wig, twirling the blonde hair. 

“My silly brother. Always slacking when he should be on the job.”

A hand snakes out to lie on Caleb’s shoulder.

“Always were the lazy one.”

***

One day there’s a thunderstorm that rips through Oregon, lightning setting everything ablaze around them and only just sparing the motel. Caleb is thankful – where else would they go? And would Norman ever leave the place where Norma lived, where Norma died, even if it became a pile of burning ash and rubble? He doubts it. 

They hide in the basement, amidst all of Norman’s taxidermy, his “pets” in suspended animation that seem almost too alive, and listen to the crack of thunder and watch the flickering lights as they go off.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, a soft voice, the feeling of soft hair brushing against his neck and shivers.

“Caleb, I’m scared.”

Caleb wraps his arms around the slim frame and holds him close.

“It’ll be all right. I promise.”

***

There’s pictures of her everywhere, and Caleb catches Norman looking at them when he’s not aware he’s being watched. There’s a lost look in his eyes, a sense that Norman knows he’s lost something he can never get back.

But he doesn’t talk about her, not really. He doesn’t have to; she’s in the walls, in the floor, gliding around and yelling and singing and flourishing. 

She’s in Norman.

***

Caleb wakes up one morning with a pain in his gut like a bullet – and he would know; he’s been shot more than once.

It’s the end, or near it, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He’s taken over this duty of watching Norman, of keeping him safe, and there’s not much left out there for him. Nothing left out there for him and less for Norman who can run the motel on his good days but forgets to eat on his bad ones.

As the bypass appears around them, less and less people have been stopping at the motel. The ones that do seem to leave quickly – they seem to grasp that something isn’t right, begin to feel highly uncomfortable and come up with reasons why they won’t be extending their stay.

Caleb has been considering putting the place on the market and using the money to pay for the help Norman so desperately needs.

But the time-table’s had to be moved up, now. Today, it’s impossible to follow Norman around, to make sure he gets things done. Caleb can’t do much more than hobble back and forth between his bed and the bathroom.

He won’t go to a hospital, he won’t.

Norman drifts by his room, his look a mix of concern and contempt.

“What’s wrong with you?” He pauses before he adds with a snarl, “Uncle Caleb?”

Caleb locks eyes with him.

“I just need a drink, Norman. Could you get me that?”

He pulls the sheets up and around him, trying to hide from the red he sees everywhere.

The glass appears as if he’s levitated it there.

“Thank you, Norman.”

Caleb gives him a slow nod as he drinks. 

He shuts his eyes, tries to come up with a scenario in which it’ll all work out, but he doesn’t know what that is. Maybe this is the last thing, the thing that always needed to happen.

Everything’s dark and he’s sure he hears a soft, feminine voice telling him to sleep now.


End file.
